[Congratulations! Your [Alchemist] profession has reached level twenty.]

Severin forced himself to stop reading any further and immediately turned to the person next to him. He discretely signaled for Emily to reign in her excitement and to not act rashly, as right now, their three customers still hadn’t left his store. Luckily, both of them didn’t have to wait for too long.

After their initial confusion, Markus, Samuel, and Mylana excused themselves and closed the door. Instead of bothering Severin himself, they were going to directly check out the situation outside and go from there. Just enough time passed for Severin to conclude that, in time, he had to relocate the training ground to somewhere underground.

“Quick! Let’s see what we got!” Emily knew the combinator was originally part of Severin’s [Alchemist] level ten rewards. She expected nothing less for level twenty.

“One second,” Severin said laughingly. While he was just as excited as Em, there was still something he wanted to do first. So, much to Emily’s displeasure, he navigated to his character sheet which was displaying his [Shopkeeper] experience.

He quickly confirmed that his main-class would also level up during the next day, if not earlier. He hadn’t just recently noticed how close his experience bar was to reaching the one hundred percent-mark. However, seeing this didn’t come as too much of a surprise. Since he could only earn [Shopkeeper] experience points by making gold, with the most of it coming from his alchemy products, the development of his two classes could only progress in relation to one another.

Severin wasn’t any less excited than Em, so he didn’t make her wait any longer. He, too, had certain expectations. He navigated back to the previous System screen and let a list of level-up rewards appear in the floating box in front of him.

The first part of this list comprised of six items. Six potions, to be precise. Of those, Severin was able to predict the effects of four of them just judging by their names.

‘Medium Health Potion’, ‘Medium Resource Potion’, and so on. They were obviously upgraded versions of the four original jelly potions.

The System’s provided item descriptions mentioned considerably higher replenishing values in turn for a minimum level requirement and a cost of ten standardized gold coins each.

The other two potions were named ‘Small Health Regeneration Potion’ and ‘Small Resource Regeneration Potion’. If taken literally, the other potions were also ‘regenerating’ ones, but to Severin, the naming convention wasn’t really an issue. He strongly suspected, that both of those potions must have some sort of over-time-effect attached to them; a suspicion that was confirmed immediately. Maybe more surprising was the fact that those potions’ price point was also at ten gold coins, despite being of the ‘small’ variety.

‘Boring’.

That was Severin’s first thought. Still, he wasn’t upset. Those rewards might seem boring to him, but they were still solid products. Products that other shop owners or alchemists could only dream of. Products that would surely end up earning him some much-needed coins. Besides, the moment he saw the relatively long list of newly unlocked rewards, Severin already resigned himself to the fact that the number of items was supposed to make up for the lack of any real innovations on the part of the System.

“I guess…”

“Amazing! Right?”

Severin was preparing to console Emily. She had squeezed herself in front of him to check out the notifications together with him. Like this, he wasn’t able to see her expressions, but figured she would probably be disappointed.

At that moment, the girl’s sudden exclamation contradicted his assumption; Even though the subsequent question sounded somewhat skeptical.

He followed her extended hand with his eyes and saw the remaining item on the list.

Outside, three people were still left standing. They hadn’t moved any further and continued to observe the situation.

Samuel wanted to call over Miriam and Timothy to question them. He soon found them standing together with a bunch of other people directly in front of the source of this big commotion. When Miriam turned around for a moment, he waved at her in an attempt to call her over, but apparently, she hadn’t seen him. Otherwise, she surely wouldn’t have grabbed Timothy’s hand the next moment to drag him further inside the crowd.

When it came to asserting the strength of the group of adventurers fighting in front of them right now, and by extension, the sturdiness of the dummy, not even Mylana or Samuel would be able to do a better job than Markus. He knew everyone’s equipment and levels, as well as their combat experience and their previous achievements. As the one who came up with large parts of them, he was also very familiar with the group’s formations and tactics. So, when he suddenly saw more than just a few high-cooldown skills bursting forth towards one of the three inconspicuous-looking figures, as their officer, he immediately recognized them as part of one of their burst rotations. The group was definitely going all-out right now.

But the moment all these skills hit their target, it didn’t even so much as shake.

Seeing this, Markus could barely keep his cool. The thing didn’t even budge. He took a deep breath but continued watching.

He didn’t want to overreact. This was only the first part of the attack, designed to stagger even the toughest enemies and to buy time for the casters to prepare their spell of destruction. In anticipation of that attack, Markus instinctively took a step back, only to start shouting once he became aware of his own action.

“Back! Stand back you, guys!” He wanted to warn the people at the front - his own tanks and healers and supports that observed the damage dealers’ struggle up-close, as well as all the other spectators not belonging to his guild. At this distance, no one that wasn’t in the same group as these attackers, and therefore immune to their damage, would be left unharmed.

But now, even if someone heard Markus under all the noise, it was already too late. He could only lament inwardly and hope the resulting injuries wouldn’t be too bad. And how come no one else was reacting? During all that time, someone else should have also thought of this point.

The whole paved fighting area turned into a sea of fire.

Markus’ heart skipped more than just one beat. Next to him, Samuel and Mylana were similarly unprepared. They might generally be quicker to react, but there was quite a bit of distance between them and, unlike Markus, they weren’t able to accurately predict this next attack. Not in-between all this chaos. Still, they all three rushed forwards, even Mylana.

But somehow the expected wave of heat never reached them. Instead, a strange purplish barrier, one that a certain member of the White Squall guild would certainly recognize, flared into existence, blocking all potential damage to the surroundings.

The crowd of spectators didn’t even seem to flinch. The situation inside the bubble also seemed to calm down. All noise of combat subsided and that of cheers and screams erupted. It was as if everyone had already predicted this situation.

The three people halted and now looked at each other with confusion and embarrassment written all over their faces. Especially Markus hoped no one had heard him scream in panic.

Only a single person suddenly seemed to flee the crowd. Somewhat belatedly, and therefore, drawing all kinds of strange looks. But the person with the small black card in his hand who was running away from the still pristine-looking training ground and towards the Emporium didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of him.